New Urban Levers to Address Homelessness

What new urban levers can the Victorian state rapidly deploy to address Melbourne's homelessness crisis?

Melbourne’s homelessness problem is clearly worsening. Consequences include rising community concern, some social conflict and a wide scale deterioration in the well-being of vulnerable people, especially city sleepers. There is increasing evidence of overload on the support sector. Although homelessness has a complex causality, a number of intensifying development trends are escalating the problem, including the redevelopment of sites that have long provided last resort housing for the vulnerable (especially but not only boarding houses and caravan parks). Other trends contributing to the problem include the rapid growth of CBD student accommodation to the exclusion of other forms and new regulatory standards that constrain ‘bottom of market’ housing provision.

Evidence from other jurisdictions and from the historical policy record suggest that there are new urban interventions that could be deployed to address, if not solve, the crisis. These lie in the areas of capital financing, repurposing of surplus government assets, planning policies for inclusionary housing, and improved state coordination of cross sectoral response.

What new urban levers can the Victorian state rapidly deploy to address Melbourne's homelessness crisis?

One question to be asked is how can the State better deploy the agencies it has already set up to deal with low income housing (Victoria’s Housing Associations) to rapidly respond to escalating need in last resort housing crisis? Or is there a case for a special purpose agency to target provision of last resort housing?

This study is an initiative of the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute at the University of Melbourne. MSSI has recruited several partners to the project, each of which will bring significant pro-bono resources to the table. The principal partner for the project is SGS Economics & Planning Pty Ltd (bringing expertise in housing need assessment and business case development).

Publications:

Maximising the social benefits of public housing renewal, December 2017This background paper supports a discussion about maximising the social benefits of the Public Housing Renewal Program (PHRP) in Melbourne. It captures the content of community, tenant, local council and organisation responses to the Parliamentary Inquiry into the PHRP, highlighting widespread support for social housing renewal and shared concerns about the loss of public land and degree of private housing development on these sites. The paper also provides ideas about alternative financing models that could help fund public housing renewal without the sale of public land. The paper provides background information for the public event hosted by the University of Melbourne on December 12th 2017.

Report: The case for investing in last resort housing, 16 March 2017Our report released found that it’s cheaper to provide last resort housing to homeless people than to leave them sleeping rough. Governments and society would benefit more than they spend by providing last resort housing to homeless individuals. This is mainly through reduced healthcare costs, reduced crime, and helping people get back into employment or education.

Housing Affordability in Victoria, December 2017

his paper provides insights into housing affordability and housing stress in Australia,and specifically in Victoria, over the last decade. As this paper will outline, the way Victorians live and engage with the housing market is changing.